Based on research and the best practices of its members, the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) developed a recommended set of Common Measures to help college access and success programs guide and assess their work. All measures are associated with the two main outcomes NCAN members help their students pursue: 

• Postsecondary enrollment: Seven essential indicators, 12 optional indicators, and five core demographic characteristics.
• Postsecondary completion: Seven essential indicators, 11 optional indicators, and six demographic characteristics.

NCAN has also released a companion dashboard tool NCAN members can use to organize, analyze, and communicate their indicators.

By sharing these common indicators widely, NCAN hopes to:

• Make it easier for college access and success organizations to decide which data to track.
• Increase collection and use of data to guide improvements to student services and demonstrate the effectiveness of the college access-success field.
• Enhance equitable outcomes for subgroups of students.
• Help standardize expectations from funders and other stakeholders about evaluation metrics.
• Lay the groundwork for future benchmarking so that NCAN members can more easily learn about the effective practices of other organizations.

Resources

• Download NCAN's full list of Indicators and References
  

• Download NCAN's Common Measures Handbook
  

• Sample Access Dashboard | Sample Success Dashboard

• NCAN Common Measures Tool

• Common Measures National Resources